The Chinese cheap copy of the Range Rover Evoque will end up in court

The Landwind X7 is not a special version with a strange name of the Range Rover Evoque, far from it. It is a Chinese model known since 2014 and, as you can see in the various images, if we cover the logos and lettering, it would be very hard to tell it apart from the British crossover by Land Rover.

This is not the first time we have seen a Chinese vehicle that imitates some European-origin Premium car. In fact, it is very common. Moreover, compared with the originals, its price is laughable. In this case it costs a third of a real Range Rover Evoque.

AutoNews says that manufacturers do not usually take legal action against copies of their models because their chances of winning a lawsuit against them are practically nil. Also, many Western brands sell some of their own vehicles in the Chinese market, so they are not interested in damaging their reputation there by suing a domestic company.

However, Jaguar Land Rover seems to have had enough, and this perfect imitation of the compact SUV must have really gotten under their skin. That is why they have filed a lawsuit against the copycat manufacturer. As we said earlier, this imitation was presented in 2014, so the British manufacturer must have carefully studied “the move” and be confident in its position.

This imitation has caused major losses for the brand in the Chinese market. The final outcome of this lawsuit filed by Jaguar Land Rover is highly important. If the competent authorities side with the British multinational, many manufacturers will file lawsuits on this same grounds of plagiarism against various Chinese manufacturers, supposedly with a greater chance of the authorities ruling in their favor.

On the other hand, if Jaguar Land Rover does not come out ahead, Chinese car manufacturers will likely increase these cheap and practically exact design copies of several of their models.

The manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover has probably taken this step because its latest sales figures in the Asian country are not very positive. Between January and May of last year they lost 20% of their sales, just when the Chinese imitation was launched, after having grown 36% in the first five months of 2014.

Source | AutoNews